The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has warned politicians against sabotaging the clean-up of Ogoniland, as recommended by a team of environmentalists from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
MOSOP, Friday in Port Harcourt, through its President, Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, stated that it had uncovered an evil plot by internal and external politicians, as well as their cronies, to politicise the planned Ogoni environmental remediation and restoration process, to advance some parochial political and economic agenda, capable of thwarting the success of the exercise.
The umbrella organisation of Ogoni people asked the saboteurs to steer clear of the implementation arrangements, declaring that any further attempt at undermining the process would be viewed as an affront against the collective interest of the Ogoni people and would be decisively resisted.
MOSOP said: “We insist that the environmental degradation of Ogoniland, which has compromised our general well-being, is not a political issue. Dragging the fast-tracking actions into the murky waters of politics demonstrates inexcusable callousness that should be condemned by all, especially lovers of safe and clean environment.
“We are warning external collaborators who have, and are providing resources including their platforms for the secret, devious agenda to realise that they are known and sooner than later, they will be exposed.
“We have come a long way, and we urge all Ogoni to come together, irrespective of interest, as we cannot afford to falter at this time of seeming genuine interest of government to redress the environmental wrongs against the Ogoni people. We urge all Ogoni people to heed our advice, as we will resist all attempts to frustrate efforts at ensuring environmental justice for our people.”
The umbrella organisation of Ogoni people also stated that the condition in local Ogoni communities, where the people had been reaping deaths and facing crushing livelihoods should bother everybody.
MOSOP insisted that end must come to environmental injustice in Ogoniland, thereby ensuring environmental security.
UNEP’s environmental assessment of Ogoniland was initiated by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2006, in order to put an end to the many years of pollution, neglect, environmental degradation and marginalisation in Ogoni, especially since 1958, when crude oil was first discovered in commercial quantity in Ogoniland and to adequately empower the people.
The Ogoni environmental assessment was adequately supported by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, while UNEP report, containing far-reaching recommendations was released on August 4, 2011 and presented in Abuja to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on August 12, 2011.
Rather than implementing the UNEP report, the Jonathan’s administration, on the eve of the first anniversary of the release of the UNEP report, in July 2012, set up the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP), which MOSOP kicked against, in spite of making an Ogoni daughter, Mrs. Joy Nunieh-Okunnu, its National Coordinator.
During the presidential campaigns, the then General Muhammadu Buhari visited Ogoniland and he promised the stakeholders that upon his election as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he would ensure the full implementation of the recommendations contained in the UNEP report, thereby ending environmental terrorism in Ogoniland, with a stop to be put to pollution, marginalisation, environmental degradation and lack of empowerment in the four Ogoni LGAs of Khana, Gokana, Eleme and Tai.
President Buhari, on August 5 this year, exactly sixty eight days in office, approved the actions to fast-track the implementation of the UNEP report, with the decision described by the stakeholders across the globe, as a welcome development.
The UNEP report stated that the water in Nsisioken-Ogale-Eleme, Eleme (Ogoni) LGA of Rivers state, contained cancer-causing Benzene (carcinogen), which was 900 times the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) standards for water contamination, thereby requiring urgent attention.
The report also revealed that the sustainable environmental restoration of Ogoniland would take up to 20 years to achieve and would require coordinated efforts from government agencies at all levels, thereby recommending that the Federal Government should establish an Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority.
The UNEP report indicated that the full environmental restoration of Ogoniland would be a project, which would take 30 years to complete, after the pollution had been brought to an end, while recommending the establishment of an Environmental Restoration Fund for Ogoniland, with initial fund of $1 billion for capacity building, skill transfer and conflict resolution and that the management of the fund should be the responsibility of the Ogoniland Environmental Restoration Authority.
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